COPPER MEN

How many miles of cradles lie
between the Dead
Sea of our salty Evil
and Jordanian eyes?

To mete out its innocence,
I pluck an eyebrow
and lay it on a shellacked
plaque crucifixion.

Ramadan claimed a life
Before the dawn died
at my high school. Her soul
swallowed a purple oleander

Drowned under an olive tree
Her heart faced the sun.

Fakirs long rattled
their sabers hardly numb
bequeath Nadir's soul
to a plum grove

frozen above the Holy land of Algiers.

Its limbs bear dark offerings,
coffins and tithing doves black
with dynamite strapped
to their worm-filled beaks
that barely move.

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